Select-Xml
Finds text in an XML string or document.
Syntax
Select-Xml
[-XPath] <string>
[-Xml] <XmlNode[]>
[-Namespace <hashtable>]
[<CommonParameters>]
Select-Xml
[-XPath] <string>
[-Path] <string[]>
[-Namespace <hashtable>]
[<CommonParameters>]
Select-Xml
[-XPath] <string>
-LiteralPath <string[]>
[-Namespace <hashtable>]
[<CommonParameters>]
Select-Xml
[-XPath] <string>
-Content <string[]>
[-Namespace <hashtable>]
[<CommonParameters>]
Description
The Select-Xml
cmdlet lets you use XPath queries to search for text in XML strings and documents.
Enter an XPath query, and use the Content, Path, or Xml parameter to specify the XML to
be searched.
Examples
Example 1: Select AliasProperty nodes
This example gets the alias properties in the Types.ps1xml
. For information about this file, see
about_Types.ps1xml.
The first command saves the path to the Types.ps1xml
file in the $Path
variable.
The second command saves the XML path to the AliasProperty node in the $XPath
variable.
The Select-Xml
cmdlet gets the AliasProperty nodes that are identified by
the XPath statement from the Types.ps1xml
file. The command uses a pipeline operator (|
) to send the
AliasProperty nodes to the Select-Object
cmdlet. The ExpandProperty parameter expands the
Node object and returns its Name and ReferencedMemberName properties.
$Path = "$Pshome\Types.ps1xml"
$XPath = "/Types/Type/Members/AliasProperty"
Select-Xml -Path $Path -XPath $Xpath | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Node
Name ReferencedMemberName
---- --------------------
Count Length
Name Key
Name ServiceName
RequiredServices ServicesDependedOn
ProcessName Name
Handles Handlecount
VM VirtualSize
WS WorkingSetSize
Name ProcessName
Handles Handlecount
VM VirtualMemorySize
WS WorkingSet
PM PagedMemorySize
NPM NonpagedSystemMemorySize
Name __Class
Namespace ModuleName
The result shows the Name and ReferencedMemberName of each alias property in the Types.ps1xml
file. For example, there is a Count property that is an alias of the Length property.
Example 2: Input an XML document
This example shows how to use the XML parameter to provide an XML document to the Select-Xml
cmdlet.
The Get-Content
cmdlet gets the content of the Types.ps1xml
file and saves it in the $Types
variable. The [xml]
casts the variable as an XML object.
The Select-Xml
cmdlet gets the MethodName nodes in the Types.ps1xml
file. The command uses
the Xml parameter to specify the XML content in the $Types
variable and the XPath
parameter to specify the path to the MethodName node.
[xml]$Types = Get-Content $Pshome\Types.ps1xml
Select-Xml -Xml $Types -XPath "//MethodName"
Example 3: Search PowerShell Help files
This example shows how to use the Select-Xml
cmdlet to search the PowerShell XML-based cmdlet help
files. In this example, we'll search for the cmdlet name that serves as a title for each help file
and the path to the help file.
The $Namespace
variable contains a hash table that represents the XML namespace that is used for
the help files.
The $Path
variable contains the path to the PowerShell help files. If there are no help files in
this path on your computer, use the Update-Help
cmdlet to download the help files. For more
information about Updatable Help, see
about_Updatable_Help.
The Select-Xml
cmdlet searches the XML files for cmdlet names by finding Command:Name
element
anywhere in the files. The results are stored in the $Xml
variable. Select-Xml
returns a
SelectXmlInfo object that has a Node property, which is a System.Xml.XmlElement object.
The Node property has an InnerXML property that contains the actual XML that is retrieved.
The $Xml
variable is piped to the Format-Table
cmdlet. The Format-Table
command uses a
calculated property to get the Node.InnerXML property of each object in the $Xml
variable,
trim the white space before and after the text, and display it in the table, along with the Path
to the source file.
$Namespace = @{
command = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/maml/dev/command/2004/10"
maml = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/maml/2004/10"
dev = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/maml/dev/2004/10"
}
$Path = "$Pshome\en-us\*dll-Help.xml"
$Xml = Select-Xml -Path $Path -Namespace $Namespace -XPath "//command:name"
$Xml | Format-Table @{Label="Name"; Expression= {($_.node.innerxml).trim()}}, Path -AutoSize
Name Path
---- ----
Export-Counter C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Diagnostics.dll-Help.xml
Get-Counter C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Diagnostics.dll-Help.xml
Get-WinEvent C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Diagnostics.dll-Help.xml
Import-Counter C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Diagnostics.dll-Help.xml
Add-Computer C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Management.dll-Help.xml
Add-Content C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Management.dll-Help.xml
Checkpoint-Computer C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-us\Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Management.dll-Help.xml
...
Example 4: Different ways to input XML
This example shows two different ways to send XML to the Select-Xml
cmdlet.
The first command saves a here-string that contains XML in the $Xml
variable. For more information
about here-strings, see
about_Quoting_Rules.
Select-Xml
uses the Content parameter to specify the XML in the $Xml
variable.
The third command is the same as the second, except that tt uses a pipeline operator (|
) to send
the XML in the $Xml
variable to the Select-Xml
cmdlet.
$Xml = @"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Book>
<projects>
<project name="Book1" date="2009-01-20">
<editions>
<edition language="English">En.Book1.com</edition>
<edition language="German">Ge.Book1.Com</edition>
<edition language="French">Fr.Book1.com</edition>
<edition language="Polish">Pl.Book1.com</edition>
</editions>
</project>
</projects>
</Book>
"@
Select-Xml -Content $Xml -XPath "//edition" | foreach {$_.node.InnerXML}
En.Book1.com
Ge.Book1.Com
Fr.Book1.com
Pl.Book1.com
$Xml | Select-Xml -XPath "//edition" | foreach {$_.node.InnerXML}
En.Book1.com
Ge.Book1.Com
Fr.Book1.com
Pl.Book1.com
Example 5: Use the default xmlns namespace
This example shows how to use the Select-Xml
cmdlet with XML documents that use the default xmlns
namespace. The example gets the titles of Windows PowerShell ISE user-created snippet files. For
information about snippets, see New-IseSnippet.
The $SnippetNamespace
variable contains a hash table for the default namespace that snippet XML
files use. The hash table value is the XMLNS schema URI in the snippet XML. The hash table key name,
snip, is arbitrary. You can use any name that is not reserved, but you cannot use xmlns.
The Select-Xml
cmdlet gets the content of the Title element of each snippet. It uses the
Path parameter to specify the Snippets directory and the Namespace parameter to specify the
namespace in the $SnippetNamespace
variable. The value of the XPath parameter is the
snip:Title
. The results are piped to the ForEach-Object
cmdlet, which gets the title from the
value of the InnerXml property of the node.
$SnippetNamespace = @{snip = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/PowerShell/Snippets"}
Select-Xml -Path $HOME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Snippets -Namespace $SnippetNamespace -XPath "//snip:Title" |
ForEach-Object {$_.Node.Innerxml}
Parameters
-Content
Specifies a string that contains the XML to search. You can also pipe strings to Select-Xml
.
Type: | String[] |
Position: | Named |
Default value: | None |
Required: | True |
Accept pipeline input: | True |
Accept wildcard characters: | False |
-LiteralPath
Specifies the paths and file names of the XML files to search. Unlike Path, the value of the LiteralPath parameter is used exactly as it is typed. No characters are interpreted as wildcards. If the path includes escape characters, enclose it in single quotation marks. Single quotation marks tell PowerShell not to interpret any characters as escape sequences.
Type: | String[] |
Aliases: | PSPath, LP |
Position: | Named |
Default value: | None |
Required: | True |
Accept pipeline input: | True |
Accept wildcard characters: | False |
-Namespace
Specifies a hash table of the namespaces used in the XML. Use the
format@{<namespaceName> = <namespaceValue>}
.
When the XML uses the default namespace, which begins with xmlns, use an arbitrary key for the
namespace name. You cannot use xmlns. In the XPath statement, prefix each node name with the
namespace name and a colon, such as //namespaceName:Node
.
Type: | Hashtable |
Position: | Named |
Default value: | None |
Required: | False |
Accept pipeline input: | False |
Accept wildcard characters: | False |
-Path
Specifies the path and file names of the XML files to search. Wildcard characters are permitted.
Type: | String[] |
Position: | 1 |
Default value: | None |
Required: | True |
Accept pipeline input: | True |
Accept wildcard characters: | True |
-Xml
Specifies one or more XML nodes.
An XML document will be processed as a collection of XML nodes. If you pipe an XML document to
Select-Xml
, each document node will be searched separately as it comes through the pipeline.
Type: | XmlNode[] |
Aliases: | Node |
Position: | 1 |
Default value: | None |
Required: | True |
Accept pipeline input: | True |
Accept wildcard characters: | False |
-XPath
Specifies an XPath search query. The query language is case-sensitive. This parameter is required.
Type: | String |
Position: | 0 |
Default value: | None |
Required: | True |
Accept pipeline input: | False |
Accept wildcard characters: | False |
Inputs
System.String or System.Xml.XmlNode
You can pipe a path or XML node to this cmdlet.
Outputs
Notes
XPath is a standard language that is designed to identify parts of an XML document. For more information about the XPath language, see XPath Reference and the Selection Filters section of Event Selection.
Related Links
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